Our family lived in Pennsylvania when I was a child. And my brother and I would sing a song we made up as my father drove past the refineries in Camden, New Jersey. From the backseat, we would sing this dumb song, extolling the glory of these huge metal structures. Of course there were some gray ones, but I do think an attempt was made to beautify the environment with pink, yellow and blue ones. Big silos and smokestacks, all seeming to tumble over each other as we passed over the bridge. The pastel colors would disappear under our car.

I know now, these smokestacks and refineries dump pollution into the air. Smoke and gases and horrible stuff. But I think the early influence of folding this into my aesthetic, began with the smoke stacks of Camden, New Jersey, as it was then.

Hollis, this composition is interesting. So you’ve got those monstrous smokestacks in the background pumping toxic fumes into the precious atmosphere leveling their damage but all in the name of progress right? Then the vegetables or roots that symbolize something that sustains life. What a bifurcation of themes and disturbing too, in that we are always walking this line between putting things into the environment that are in actual fact killing us while reaping the benefits of the things we grow. Great piece, challenging theme!